Like Lars von Trier feeding off the corpse of George A. Romero... a subversive delight

Rating: Null/10 (16 April 2008)

This is perhaps one of the most subversively topical British horror films ever made. We open with a primate tied to an operating table, forced to watch images of war, death and bloodshed unfolding before his teary eyes. As it happens, these various monkeys - caged and chained in a secret lab - are being used by government scientists to breed pure-rage. Once passed on, those infected will be blinded by rage to such an extent that they revert to the state of mindless zombies, their only concern, to destroy anything in sight. 28 Days Later... Infection has spread; full-scale evacuation has taken place. Jim awakes from a coma, naked and alone. He wanders around a deserted London city centre picking up scattered notes, filling plastic bags with free chocolate and soft drinks, whilst impotently searching for any signs of life. His only allies - and the only people seemingly unaffected - are Selena, a no-nonsense young woman who has learned the rules of survival, Frank, a cockney cab driver, and his young daughter Hannah, who Frank has been forced to raise alone following the death of his wife. Together the quartet set out for Manchester, where a rouge military unit has been broadcasting messages that promise a cure to infection.
Here, the topical reference points are fascinating; enriching the drama on an entirely believable level but never getting in the way of the thrills and spills that we would expect from such a genre. If you're looking to read more into it, just look at the opening scenes. It begins with monkeys - a signifier for the human race - being force-fed images of war and social evils. The images are given an unbelievable sense of potency in the wake of September 11th; as do the images of a deserted metropolis, abandoned cars, houses and money; a cinematic ground zero brimming with hate and confusion. Then we have the notion of infection; something very relevant when we think of the recent worries about Anthrax and more pertinent woes such as BSE, Foot & Mouth and the South East Asian pandemic of SARS. Then there is the use of a militant threat; the juxtaposition of uniformed evil, as the supposed protectors of piece, turning out to be the true villains of the story. However, more importantly, 28 Days Later represents a fear on the filmmaker's part of living in Blair's Britain. Admittedly, this is tapping into Romero territory somewhat, with the deeper elements of political satire at work in films like Night of the Living Dead (1968), Day of the Dead (1985) and the recent Land of the Dead (2005), but clearly the statements made here are potent, and should be understood by the film's detractors who see 28 Days Later as a simple B-movie pastiche.
The inclusion of current, semi-social iconography is clearly intended to give the film a more intense sense of realism, again, subverting the usual B-movie stereotypes and creating something that kind of works within the context of the low-key cinema that England is famous for. Here, director Danny Boyle manages to give the film a wonderful-contemporary style, with his cinematographer Anthony Dodd Mantel using digital video in a much more traditional way to how other filmmakers employ it. Boyle resists, for the most part, shaking the camera around wildly. He composes his images, uses a steady-cam and there are also a couple of decent crane shots. He also works fantastically well at wringing tension from Alex Garland's often heavy-handed script, giving us scenes of cinematic excitement to rival Hollywood, with the standout scene being the depiction of an abandoned London. In Vanilla Sky (2001) Cameron Crowe shut down Times Square to convey Tom Cruise's metaphysical alienation. With 28 Days Later Boyle goes one further... he closes down an entire city.
The end of the film juxtaposes a stately country manor - the desired setting for numerous, iconic British dramas - with scenes of unbelievable violence. Some have complained about the sparseness of gore in the film, but it is my belief that the filmmakers are half struggling with depicting violence in a real, horrific way; rather than the over-the-top blood baths of the recent all-knowing slasher flicks, or the violence of the more recent gorno horror of Hostel (2005) and Saw III (2006). This goes beyond the ten little Indians method of picking off characters; here we get an emotional connection too. The final scenes are without a doubt the most visceral, with Garland and Boyle again referencing Apocalypse Now (1979) to great effect, or at least to a greater effect than their somewhat toothless attempt at it with The Beach (2000). Here we get the last hurrah; a staggering example of mood and atmosphere, as one grisly murder follows the other and the message of rage - and what it does to a human-being, infected or not - is finally revealed.
Cut to 28 Days Later... after this, you could argue that the dénouement falls apart, seeming far too rushed and too unfocused. Apparently the filmmakers were unclear of which of their many endings to go with, and the haste of their decision shows. Regardless, acting is sufficient, with standout performances from Christopher Eccleston as the mysterious Major Henry West and Brendan Gleeson giving a great deal of humanity as Frank, the film's surrogate father figure. Murphy does well as Jim, but on the whole the younger actors struggle to convey real emotion, coming across as far too smug and insincere. Had the script been given a little more attention this could have been a masterpiece. It doesn't quite reach that level, but it is very good, and definitely represents an exciting step forward for British genre-film-making and the so-called new horror revival. Boyle and Garland have coupled some weighty social issues to a genre that people want to see, resulting in a film that is visually stimulating and on the whole, excitingly cinematic.